My Mosts of the Moment

Most Eagerly Anticipated…

Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers

As you might know from previous blogs, I am a HUGE fan of Jeffers and this latest offering has only fortified my fanship! In Up and Down, Jeffers returns to us that lovably odd pair of friends, of boy and penguin, from the earlier Lost and Found. His work always touching without being corny or sentimentally syrupy, Up and Down is true to this storyteller's art.

Readers reconnect with the eccentric characters to learn that even though "they always did everything together," the penguin has decided there is "something important" he must do all by himself: fly! But he soon discovers that his wings don't seem to work very well, and runs off to enlist himself as the new "living canonball" at a nearby circus. But his friend, the boy, is never far off... When the canon-sprung penguin comes hurtling back down to earth, the arms of his friend are waiting to catch him. The lesson that day is that penguins don't care much for flying. But more valuable is the unspoken lesson delivered loud and clear, in the importance of friendship. And beyond that still, readers are left with the feeling that fly or no-fly, whatever it is you most love doing, and wherever feels like home, well, that'll do just fine.

So together again and heading off into the sunset, the boy and penguin make their escape from the circus-life back home to do what they do best: play "their favourite game," backgammon.

(Follow this link to read an extract.)

Most Exciting...

Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School by David Mackintosh

It's a thrilling day for me when I stumble upon a new illustrator/writer. (And, to clarify, by 'new' I mean only that they are new to me, like America to Columbus but without all that messy conquering business...) And David Mackintosh is a stupendous discovery for a lover of children's books! Described by the blurb as a "funny book about an out-of-this-world boy by a sparkling talent," the publishers tell no lies. Marshall Strong is the new-boy at school, and the teacher advises he sit in front of the class till he "settles in." This is much to the displeasure of Mackintosh's narrator as Marshall takes up the seat next to him. "He looks different to me," he decides on one look at this uninvited schoolmate. And his stationery is strange. And his "ear looks like a shell," and he has lips like "my tropical fish, Ninja." Things are altogether Not Right.

And as Marshall Armstrong leaves school on a penny-farthing, the narrator concludes that he "doesn't fit in at our school," with big, bold letters as emphasis,
                                                            "Not one bit."

So naturally, when he is invited to Marshall Armstrong's birthday party, our narrator is more than just a little resistant. But he is soon to be pleasantly surprised... They are not denied delicioius treats or forced to read the newspaper with Marshall's dad, as he had suspected. Instead, the children enjoy a spectacular day of running around the house, swinging on a monkey pole, sliding down a fireman's pole and drinking "REAL lemonade made from lemons. And with pips." As it turns out, Marshall is as "great" as his birthday party and initial perceptions are turned upside-down.
       And when the story ends with a shy-looking "Elisabeth Bell" who "is new to our school," Marshall and the narrator are ready for her, suggesting that she sit in the front with them "for the first few days until she settles in."

While the 'moral' of Mackintosh's story is a relatively common one, it is the perspective that is most appreciated. The voice of the narrator is undeniably a child's and there is no adult intervention to administer the day's lesson. Ultimately, the narrator and Marshall are their own agents in welcoming Elisabeth Bell to the classroom. And in the illustrative work we have a similar recreation of the child's experience. Often working against a plain white background, Mackintosh's mixed-medium of predominantly pencil crayon, collage, and watercolour may appear simplistic. But as with children's insight, his artwork constantly surprises with attention to those details that the grown-up eye might so often overlook. From the glasses "pinched ... from another boy" because they bear the name, "Ray Ban," to Marshall's shoelaces that are "straight, not crisscrossed," Mackintosh reminds readers that little escapes such curious eyes. Picture books such as this are invaluable to us. They reassure and reaffirm in young readers their extraordinary views of even the most 'mundane' or 'everyday'; and hopefully, they return to parents and adult readers those maybe forgotten ways of seeing the world.

Most Surprising...

Blue Chameleon by Emily Gravett

It wasn't my intention to pull out a selection from the bookshop shelves that each, in their own way, seem to deal with what it means to Be or to Belong or to be Befriended, but somehow so it is. And try as our chameleon will, he is finding all this 'B'-ing very difficult indeed. Long-established and celebrated creator of children's books, Gravett clevery employs the natural wonder of the chameleon as a trope for human awkwardness (and ultimately metamorphosis) in the pursuit of self-knowledge and acceptance. And what appears to be a unique education in shapes and colours is really an education in matters of the heart, too. It is my 'most surprising' in that I found myself so very touched by Gravett's chameleon in ways that I cannot entirely explain and ways that surprised me...

In the beginning, our chameleon is the colour blue because he is "lonely." But when he comes upon a banana, he spots the chance to end his loneliness. "Hi," he says to the banana, mimicking its shape and changing colour to match the fruit's yellow. And so it goes with a "Pink cockatoo" ("Hello, hello, hello"), a "Swirly snail" ("Nice to meet you"), a "Brown boot" ("Howdy"), a "Stripy sock" on a washing line ("Can I hang out with you?"), a "Spotty ball" ("Pssst"), a "Gold fish" (greeted with a series of empty bubbles), and a "Green grasshopper" (who hops off with a chameleon in futile pursuit)... All to no avail. Perched on a "Grey rock" (and grey in colour himself), our chameleon gives up. He turns invisible (but for a faint outline) on a "White page," resigned to a friendless existence, when from beyond the next page comes a speech bubble: "Hello?" And at last, we turn the page to witness two very ecstatic "Colourful chameleons" who have finally found each other.

A story of Being True, children will leave this colour-filled adventure with the wisdom that there is little gain in being something you're not in the hope that others will approve. Never underestimate a story told simply and honestly.

Most Surprisingly Necessary...

Naughty Toes by Ann Bonwill and Teresa Murfin

I would like to close my eyes, and open them to find a world where gender stereotypes have been nipped in the bud once and for all. But the world says "Humbug!" to that idea... Instead, chainstore toy emporiums still offer a plethora of plastic princess crowns and dollies that actually wet themselves for the express pleasure of little girls, with superhero masks and frighteningly angry-looking machine-guns for little boys. I'm not saying little girls shouldn't enjoy costume jewellery, or little boys aspire to the code of Spiderman... But its the strict regulation of toy-gender specificity that I feel some issue with. (I am most suspicious of the gifts given to little girls shaped like ironing boards, baby bottles, and vacuum cleaners, in the alluringly pretty pastels of pink and purple, but I'll save the rant for another rainy day...)

I teach English Literature part-time at my town university, and the first-year course is compulsory for those students enrolled in Education. As is the case with anything Compulsory, the reception of the books on the syllabus is often tentative. Why must these young men and women who one day want to teach a bunch of 6-year-olds be subjected to such heavy abstract nouns like Race or Gender? And I hope Naughty Toes might prove useful in such future inquests.

Trixie's sister, Belinda is a ballerina. Along with being a ballerina, Belinda does not appear to jump in puddles or mess ice-cream on herself. Most importantly, Belinda does not have "naughty toes." Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Trixie. From the purple-and-green ballet leotard she chooses for its flair (while Belinda "picks classic pink and white"), to her hair that "sticks out all over like dandelion," naughty toes are just the beginning of Trixie's problems. Constantly upsetting the ballet teacher, Trixie struggles to "find spirit" as a rock in the school play. Meanwhile, her sister (and the star of the show), Belinda, turns twirls on the stage in a "sequinned blue tutu" as the "fairy princess." When the two go backstage, it seems that things could not get any worse for the naughty-toed sister. A beautiful bouquet of pink roses are waiting for Belinda with a card: "For my prima ballerina, with love from Madame Mina." But Trixie has her own surprise in store... A box tied together with red string, and a note that reads "Follow your feet"... Inside, a pair of dazzling red shoes and matching top-hat reveal that Trixie is not a ballerina... She is a "tap dancer!"

What I love most about this story is that at no point does the reader sense anything more than Trixie's love and admiration for her "swan"-like sister. And in the end, it is through this little heroine's warmth and special charm that readers come to recognise both girls for the talented young individuals they are.

The Most Mysterious...

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris van Allsburg

There is little I have to say about this one... 'Reverence' seems to be about the best I can come up with. But I'll try, reverence and all...

Chris van Allsburg first discovered these 'mysteries of Harris Burdick' in the company of a Peter Wenders. Once in publishing, Wenders had received 14 illustrations from a stranger, Harris Burdick, who wished to know what the publisher thought of his work. Each of the 14 illustrations was but a selection of the illustrations that accompanied 14 different stories by Burdick. The publisher liked his work and the artist promised to bring the accompanying stories the very next morning. But Harry Burdick never returned, leaving Wender with the mystery of these 14 pictures, each given a title and caption courtesy of their missing creator. It is these abandoned works that have been reproduced in this collection by Van Allsburg in black-and-white along with their original titles and captions, for readers to mull over in their own imaginations.

There is some strange magic at work in this picture book. There are those that hint at the eerie, the impossible, the fated, and The End. And then, I am sure there will be the favourites. Mine has become the picture entitled "THE SEVEN CHAIRS," with a caption that reads: "The fifth one ended up in France." A chair is suspended in mid-air, with a nun perched mutely atop. Light streams in through the high cathedral windows and two 'men of the cloth' look on the spectacle with a holy solemnity. I think it is their seriousness, off-set by the utter absurdity, that tickles me pink with this one.

A Box of Magic Pencils

I had the blooming blessed fortune of visiting the British Library in London a few years back. Well, it was more of a ‘pop in’. Not that anyone should ever admit to ‘popping in’ to the British Library. But I’ve been told it’s not everybody’s idea of a Fantastic Time, that is to have spent the entire afternoon in a library. So when in company, I have to be reasonable about these things. In truth, the two hours I had to spend didn’t even get me past their gift shop (a stone’s throw from the entrance). A student budget blown, all I could do was admire the endless book memorabilia, coveting out of the question. The thought of making a klepto-maniacal run for it briefly crossed my mind, in spite of what looked like pretty tight security.
       I had my doubts though. London wasn’t ready for the crazy South African fleeing the scene of the British Library gift shop with an armful of Alice-in-Wonderland stationery and a demented but satiated look in her eye. ‘Bobby Dies of Lead Poisoning’. Peruse it was then.
        And it was in these two hours of perusing/penny-less loitering (potato, tomato)that I fell in love Italian-born illustrator Sara Fanelli.

She was one of the illustrator featured in a collection of children’s book art, The Magic Pencil.  Fanelli’s eccentric approach to collage and the art of re-enchanting found, everyday objects had me spellbound. And excited. There was an energy to her craft that was infectious. Cheeky. Brazen. Unapologetic.Infectious.I have been a fan ever since.

 There is a certain unbridled joy in being given free licence in art class to colour outside the lines. Another in handling an art tool that won’t bend entirely to your will. (The second, however, may also be dished with the initial sheer frustration.) This is Fanelli’s gift as an illustrator, to remake the world outside the lines, recreating characters that don’t entirely bend to anyone’s will. And what better way than by (mis)representing one of our most infamously mischievous and unruly characters, Pinocchio. (The result of which made for a brief mention in my last blog...)

      Asked to work together with translator Emma Rose on an edition of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio for the Walker Illustrated Classics series, it was Fanelli’s first impulse to ease up on the moralistic overtones she remembered from her Italian youth. Her sense of Collodi’s tale was revived, instead, by its surreal characters and dream-like story, a dream in which one strange moment is always enfolded within another and never feels beholden to excuse its (il)logic to the reader.

         Watching Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio (2002) a few years back, I had a similar re-encounter. The fairy I remembered from my Disney-informed youth was a bottle-blonde who routinely donned an immaculate sparkly blue dress. But Benigni’s fairy had dark, secret eyes and long, dark blue hair. And Benigni’s fairy did not disappear and re-appear with the wave of a wand and emerge from a centre of bright light. His fairy travelled by coach, a coach drawn no less by an endless expanse of white mice. It was this version of Pinocchio that returned me to the real magic of Collodi’s fantastic escapade. Like Fanelli’s work it was refreshingly unapologetic.

Returning to the Walkers Illustrated Classic, this unapologetic turn has arguably revealed a version closer to the original. Rather than making this a moralistic tale (where a once naughty boy is rewarded by the end for good behaviour), Rose and Fanelli ultimately re-tell the story of the inexhaustible love of a father for that wilful and wild creature: his son. And with their help, at twenty-seven I have fallen in love not only with Fanelli’s work but also with a tale whose watered down version never wowed me in my bedtime-story days. I have come to fall in love with Medoro, the blue fairy’s right-hand agent, a “handsome poodle” in “a coachman’s uniform,” “with jewelled buttons and two large pockets to hold the bones his mistress [gives] him for lunch.” (Although, I adore most the blue satin cover he wears on his tail.) I have fallen in love with Gepetto, the carpenter teased by the children and called “Maisy on account of his yellow wig […] exactly the colour of maize porridge.” And I have fallen in love with that incorrigible stump of wood that becomes a real boy. What I love most though, of this edition, is the reminder that the joy of story magic is for all ages. And arguably Fanelli’sgreatest contribution here is her work’s emphasis that illustration is art, the art of a magical pencil.

So here are a few magic pencils I want to tip a colourful hat to:

Ralph Steadman, Thank You. As always, you are a mad man and genius. With your help, the Firefly Books edition of an art-deco inspired Alice in Wonderland is every bit the warped and weird adventure it should always be. (As a teeny tiny digression, I would also like to tip that colourful hat here to Cape Town’s finest, The Book Lounge. In true form, you are that good bookstore and rarity, infinitely rewarding with such finds!)

Erin E. Stead, for your technique of combining woodblock printing and pencil that have sketched in my mind Amos McGee, the “early riser,” the chess-playing elephant (“who thought and thought before making a move”), the racing tortoise (“who never lost”), the pigeon-toed penguin (“who was very shy”), the sniffly rhinoceros (“who always had a runny nose”), and the bespectacled owl (“who was afraid of the dark”). You have brought the dear characters of A Sick Day for Amos McGee into my home with immeasurable tenderness.

And a thank you to Joel Stewart, for the dreamy and delightful depiction of Dr Moon in Tree Soup (A Stanley Wells Mystery).And for your Sneep, Snook, Loon and Knoo in Have You Ever Seen a Sneep? A treasure in my bookcase is your contribution to the Walkers Illustrated Classics’ collection, Tales of Hans Christian Andersen. The Little Mermaid you have rendered is hauntingly sweet, sad and beautiful, while your emperor’s nightingale remains steadfastly true and good in the face of Death.

To Timothy Basil Ering, your mouse of Kate DiCamillo’s imagination is as physically tiny and equally big of heart. It is not hard to find one’s self endeared by that small “disappointment” of the brave but minute Despereaux of large-eared fame. And where DiCamillo’s unequivocal love speaks in leaps and bounds for her unique and often misfit characters, it is matched by yours.

Likewise, to Yoko Tanaka who has so seamlessly contributed to the “dark but warm” tale in Kate DiCamillo’s The Magician’s Elephant. I could think of no more a fitting magic pencil than yours for this city of Baltese where an orphan dreams of his missing sister and elephants. Your illustrations materialise the magician’s elephant that arrives shortly after with the same tragically charming art as DiCamillo’s story. Meaning only to “conjure a bouquet of lilies”, the reconciliations that ripple from the magician’s act, both painful and uplifting, demand a maturity that you have faultlessly delivered.

And to Angela Barrett, for your illustrations in the recent Walker Books edition of Beauty and the Beast (as retold by Max Eilenberg). The vision of the Beast is unparalleled, full with the complexity and the body of longing his bedevilled form has made him. And in your artist’s truer understanding of his beastly form, you have made him other but exquisite. The double-page depiction of the penultimate moment reveals this, with Beauty’s return to the dying Beast. Her deep regret for that fateful broken promise is tangible, and the reader wants no more than her the death of this snow-covered and moonlit Beast. In the end I believe I share, too, in your ambivalence, when that Beast so beautiful is transformed back into a handsome and human prince. 

My over-rated (un)happy ending...

Tiny Candles in a Dark, Swirling World

Even if you insisted on finishing your novel, what for? Novels sit unpublished, or published but unsold, or sold but unread, or read but unreread, lonely on shelves and in drawers and under the legs of wobbly tables. They are like seashells on the beach. Not enough people marvel over them. They pick them up and put them down. […]

      Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It brings light and warmth and hope to the lucky few who, against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, find themselves in the right place to hold it.

-Lemony Snicket

Books behave in a way not dissimilar to the gods, in my life at least. The instant I even suspect I might lose faith, a messenger (of usually odd and abstract sorts) is sent to bestow divine light and a transcendental sense of Higher Power upon my wretched and misguidedly sheepish soul.

A while ago, it was in the shape and form of marionettes…Oh yes, and automatons… First came Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret (that inspired my first blog)… Then, Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore…

And Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop (a purchase based entirely on my love of Nights at the Circus and very attractive book-binding courtesy of Virago Press)… While a revisit to the illustrative works of Sara Fanelli (who warrants something of an infatuation) led me to Emma Rose’s translation of Collodi's Pinocchio for the Walker Classics range… Hereafter, it was Joanne Owen’s Puppet Master (although here I can hardly feign surprise at the subject matter!)…

But believe me when I tell you, they find me in theme, and in secret longings, and seek me out…

And when it is not the books themselves, it is the writer speaking on their behalf, reminding me I may be ill-advised in my passion but surely not Wrong…
     Or, at least, not alone.

And reading Lemony Snicket’s address to writers was like some god of all things Book throwing a playful pebble into a puddle, and a veritable force in a teacup it turned out to be.

        What was designed as a whimsical ‘deterrent’ to fledgling authors – determined as we are to support a dying and irrelevant art – became not only a mission statement for me (as I’m sure many others), but something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Really, such an address on the art of storytelling lies at the heart of my blog. Some people build shrines out of red candles lit on Spanish mountain tops, or big green trees and fairy lights and miniature barns with synthetic straw. I build mine out of my small space in Google. And while the book-makers and writers and illustrators I worship might barely know of my existence, I pray that these affections are not lost in the greater cosmic pool. I build these shrines because I remember how close Tinker Bell came to the deathly knoll, and I want to scream from rooftops and bell towers and precariously-strung scaffoldings,

‘I BELIEVE IN IMAGINATION!’ (Very loudly.)

And as if this is not sufficient, as if Lemony Snicket’s words are not plucky enough, it is not even a day and I have stumbled on a shoe-box of children’s books outside a mega-Spar, selling for a rand or two or three a-piece.

The Girl Who Would Rather Climb Trees

by Miriam Schlein

pictures by Judith Gwyn Brown.

Staple-bound and easily undetectable. But here I am, with just enough money in my small wallet for such a purchase, with a mint plant thrown in to sweeten the deal. (Simple explanation: the shoe-box bookstore extended to accommodate a makeshift-nursery.)

Published in 1975, and by the same author of Metric – The Modern Way to Measure, it tells the equally modern story of Melissa who “you could say” was in fact “a lot of different Melissas.” From “Melissa the reader” to “Melissa the bird-watcher,” “the puzzle-doer” and “the ballplayer,” there isn’t much Melissa can’t do... Until her mother and her grandmother and her mother’s best friend present her with a doll in a carriage. Deciding that there is not much to do with a doll, other than to carry it from one room to another in “the correct way,” Melissa-the-all-rounder finally wheels the doll into her room before “tiptoeing out.”

        “Shhh […] Dolly’s asleep,” she whispers to her grandmother, her mother, and her mother’s best friend, before going outside “to have some fun” and climb “three trees in a row.”

Doing exactly what a picture book ought to - with a story simply told to hit all the right notes, accompanied by pictures that leave us with no choice but to know and love Melissa-the-all-rounder - I am dumbfounded. The odds of chancing upon the other book by the author of Metric-The Modern Way to Measure (and to take it home by the kind of chunk-change that even Coca Cola would discredit) feels not unlike changing water into wine with a little help from my dad.

Similarly, Brown’s Café in Humansdorp (a great haunt for chancing-upons) relinquished Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales as retold by Alison Lurie, and illustrated by Margot Tomes. Apparently, the Juvenile Section of the Port Elizabeth Library no longer wanted it. This was intimated by the faint green (and somewhat out-modish) library stamp. (I meanwhile and momentarily imagined a reckless corner in the public library where the books once childishly dog-eared their weaker peers…)

And who would not want a book that rescues women in fairy tales from the fate of those ‘heroines’ who ought to be “persecuted by wicked stepmothers, eaten by wolves, or [if nothing else!] fall asleep for a hundred years” while the ‘heroes’ “seem to have all the interesting adventures…” ? Lurie salvages Clever Gretchen, the most-wise Manka, the lucky and brave Elena (thwarting, as she does, my most beloved villain, Baba Yaga), and wide-awake Kate Crackernuts (in a subtle Scottish twist on “The Twelve Dancing Princesss”). And while part of me feels ashamed that any Juvenile Section should lose her, as it goes, their loss is my gain and treasure.

Lemony Snicket is right. Not nearly enough people marvel over them.

But I marvel, and promise not only to reread, but to marvel again with each reread. I promise never to fall out love.

(And if I may please borrow your words, Lemony Snicket…)

It is against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, that these tiny candles seek me out in this dark, swirling world.

        I count myself one of the lucky few, to be in the right place to hold them.

(Follow the link for full 'pep talk' by that brazen Snicket.)



The Case of a Good Book, in the Case of Laetitia Maklouf's "The Virgin Gardener"

There are books that hold literary merit, that leave the mind notoriously ponder-some. They go on to make for bohemian-inspired (and still ponder-some) conversations over the umpteenth glass of wine, between bored nibbles from a generous cheese spread (for the non-lactose-intolerant, of course). These are Great Books.

      A good book, I think, is a slightly different cultivar. It might never make it to the dinner table or be the cause of some or other betwixt expression. And while we’re on the subject, it is very unlikely to sacrifice its heroine’s tragically pretty-but-proud head to an oncoming train.

The good book is more akin to that strange auntie with the interminable warm smile (the kind that makes her seem a little loopy, let’s be honest). Cynicism being the new ‘cool’ (‘kewl’…?) since word got out that smoking kills, we try to resist her strange brand of charm. We arm ourselves with the strategic and artful yawn, not to mention a set of opposable thumbs ready to strike at our cell phone’s keypad.

     And no, we can’t possibly stay for a pot of tea, you daft bat!

     But our resistance is short-lived as that first sip of lovingly steeped, fragrant tea confirms that, yup, no doubt about it…what we do know is very little.

Well, Laetitia Maklouf is that daft, batty aunt (albeit in an uncharacteristically alluring package) and her book, The Virgin Gardener, is as fragrant and lovely a pot of tea as I’ve ever chanced upon.

     And to think it all started with a virgin-esque flirtation of my own…

Demurely making eyes at me from the gardening section of Fogarty’s Bookshop, there was the author sitting sweet as a posy in a pair of cocktail-umbrella-pink suede boots (entering the ‘shabby-chic’ stage of their shoe-lives), surrounded by potted plants, twine, and a floral hand-trowel. Unlike your usual gardening-book affair, there were no pristine lawns in sight, nor was she framed by one of those extensive vegetable gardens (you know the kind… the kind that looks like it could single-handedly supply the local greengrocer.)

       Instead, this smiling gardener was off-set only by a climb of concrete steps and promising “Inspiration for the first-time gardener.” Turning to the blurb at the back presented further intrigue with a pair of army-green gumboots (and the sort that have seen some genuine soil-action, no less, not those plaid yummy-mummy ones!) befriended by some (again) undeniably pink, patent leather peep-toes. This time, the book assured it would show me “how to get intimate with plants and sex up [my] living space.”

     Curiouser and curiouser.

     I’m a fan of the pretty and the quirky, so let’s just say that by this point Maklouf and her team at Bloomsbury Publishing were beginning to ‘ding ding ding’ like three cherries in a line-up.

    
But the real bait was this one single and simple promise that I will be forever grateful for: Maklouf's promise to offer the gift of gardening “without the complicated jargon and off-putting diagrams.” And I thank her most because –as is so often emphatically NOT the case –this was a promise made and kept.

I could pretend that such a promise would underestimate (or worse, that dreaded passive-aggressive verb: patronise!) me. But this would be a big fat lie. In fact, I’ll admit it, gardening can be a little scary, and the nursery is really just a place for people who know what they’re doing to show-off with a vast plethora of stuff that is vaguely familiar but really quite incomprehensible to me.

       (Disclaimer: I know this is unfair to nurseries, and that there are many out there representing the life’s work of knowledgeable people who well-and-truly want to share it so that we can all come to know the pleasures of gardening – which feels not unlike world peace. In my defence, the fear of a choice of four different potting soils is not a rational one.)

But just like many others, I was once enchanted by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, where the sour-faced and recently orphaned Mary discovers a magical world within the walls of a hidden and neglected garden. Alright, so I didn’t have a brooding but ultimately very kind uncle/benefactor, or a pseudo-crippled cousin whom no one liked because he was a lonely but selfish boy or – now that you mention it – a cheery, heath-wandering ragamuffin prone to fancy-free banter with an inquisitive red-breasted robin…
      But didn’t I, too, deserve my very own patch of earth in which to watch little green things spring up as if to say ‘peekaboo’?

And something about this book seemed to agree with me, nodding enthusiastically Yes, yes, you do.

Upon a closer inspection, it was also apparently okay to want these things even if I didn’t remotely possess a space one could call a ‘garden’ – or, at least not unless one was liberally experimenting with the word in the broadest metaphorical sense. Contrariwise, Maklouf was revealed by the bio as “a sassy girl-about-town and self-confessed plant-murderer who fell in love with plants a few years ago […] and dreams of having a garden of her own one day.” This instantly made hers, in my (im)modest opinion, one of the most refreshing gardening books around.

     It’s simple really. No matter where you live and how you live, no matter the size of your window-ledge or patch of outwardly-inclined land, The Virgin Gardener wholeheartedly confirms that you can grow your tomato and eat it.

"One perfect mouthful, one slow squeeze...one sweet explosion inside the mouth. I know everyone says it, but a tomato tastes even better if it's home-grown"

- The Virgin Gardener

By way of an introduction, the author tells of her early twenties and notions of “the Outside” at the time, as “what [she] ventured through on [her] way somewhere, usually to a party after dark.” With no particular interest in green spaces, it was only when her mother gave her a packet of seeds that Maklouf – “to alleviate the boredom of [her] office job”- planted them and became Forever After a changed woman. So changed in fact, that she quit her job the second her seedlings sprouted and enrolled on a horticultural course at the Chelsea Physics Garden in London, “instantly and irretrievably hooked on gardening.”

       However, while those around her had gardens of varying (and very literal) description, Maklouf had none, and set about researching what she would have to do in order to “create the garden [she] was learning about and dreaming of: cool, damp, ferny glades; walkways heaving with scented roses; luscious banks of white gladioli […] and hidden rockeries with fuzzy, moss-covered stones.” But it wasn’t long and the initial jargon and “sheer volume of information” had already “overwhelmed her.”

     Although my imagined ‘garden’ (if you’ll forgive this small misrepresentation) heaves with the scent of pots of flourishing thyme, I nonetheless shared in Maklouf’s dilemma. I had browsed through my grandmother’s gardening books and this was heavy-weight business. An officious-looking kit to test for alkaline/acidic soil so you would know to whether to buy ericaceous compost or lime… Come again? How to transform your garden into a hexagon…? Oh dear. And a great deal about all the awful things that can attack, eat, invade, and overcome your fresh attempt at a greener lifestyle.

So of course I was beyond delighted to turn the page with the heading, “How to grow plants,” and discover that Maklouf was swooning over-and-on-to the next point without any further hesitation. What had come to represent a special brand of alchemy for me was suddenly (and somewhat brazenly it seemed at first) reduced to three basic principles:

1) Find out where your plant originates (I heart you, Google!), and use a little bit of your imagination

2) Find out the hardiness of the plant. (Again here, Maklouf recommends making ample use of that clever and instinctive imagination.)

3) And I’m not even going to bother paraphrasing on this one: “Supply the plant with the following:

   Water Light Nutrients”

“In fact,” she confides, “even if you don’t do 1 and 2, just do this, and your plant will grow.”

The perfect wedding gift, and an afternoon dalliance, respectively...

And when the book does occasionally get a little on the technical side, our gardening guide is never anything if not unfailingly encouraging, reminding the reader that “plants want to grow, and [perhaps in spite of us] most of them will find a way.” “They do not have inhibitions or whimsical insecurities. They are not callous or contrary. Unlike us, they do not suffer from bad hair days or sulkiness. All they care about is survival and sex.” So while I personally like to suspect my baby basils of being absurdly comforted to see me when I come to say ‘hello’, such bouts of flagrant myth-dispelling nevertheless thrill me!

      Thrill-seeking aside though, and most rewarding in the end, is that The Virgin Gardener has become a read I want to return to time and time again.

On a practical level, the book achieves its objective of “essentially a plant ‘cookbook’ of easy and accessible projects for virgin gardeners.” On an affective level though, it is not only that her tips and suggestions are “easy, inexpensive and perfect for virgins: the sort of ideas that would have seduced [a prior Maklouf herself] into an afternoon with plants.”

Hanging jam jars... (apparently it helps if you are addicted to raspberry jam!)

They seduce because, after what has really felt like countless afternoons spent with its author, I will never think of a sweetly charming violet or sexy gooseberry the same. And when my latest addition – a beautiful, young lime tree –hopefully grows to be strong and fruitful one day and produces her first limes, I will honour the original virgin gardener and “always drink [my] gin and tonic sitting next to the tree that gave [me] that lovely slice.”

Plainly, The Virgin Gardener by Laetitia Maklouf is a joy in itself, and one that has only made possible for me one small and precious joy after the other. Like The Secret Garden has continued to do after countless and age-irrelevant reads, Maklouf has woven an utterly enchanting spell and - if you read between the lines – declared hers an unequivocally and decadently Good Book.

A Portrait of Mr Pug in Maklouf's Metaphorical Garden

Attic Door Loves Picture Books: A Second Installment

The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr

When I was around six years old, I had a pet kangaroo named Raspberry. Well, to be fair, she was more of a best friend than a pet (although, if you look it up in The Concise Dictionary of Six-Year-Old English, it will tell you that 'pet', when used as a noun, is synonymous and effortlessly interchangeable with 'friend'). More to the point, she was an animated best friend, which also explains why she could be purple and non-animated kangaroos are seldom found to be so. Finally - and as you may well have guessed by now - her Most Favourite Thing of all things was a juicy raspberry. So come her birthday, my pet expected what any animated, purple kangaroo named Raspberry might: namely, a raspberry cake... With purple-coloured cups of raspberry juice... and raspberry muffins with a healthy smearing of raspberry jam... and of course, raspberry tarts (of which I, at six, had only a very vague idea, having read about such sweet things called 'jam tarts' in my English stories of croquet and roasted chestnuts - for which I reserved similarly vague ideas as well as childish yearnings). So the story of a tiger who comes to tea would not be a totally unfamiliar one to my poor mother, who became very good at pretending to make delicious, raspberry-flavoured treats.
Tigers having captured the imaginations of men, women and children the world over for time immemorial... Did that sound authoritative enough? Anyway, they do, and continue to do so... Blake found in them a "fearful symmetry" "burning bright", and for Kipling the tiger was the indomitable primitive power at the heels of Mowgli in the terrifying Shere Kahn. But trust the child to take that which embodies the creature beyond taming, and invite it in for a cuppa tea. 

However, while some reviewers have read Kerr's interpretation of the tiger as one that is harmless and lovable, to my mind, hers is more of an ink-blot test. And in this ink-blot, I see a pair of sly but smiling eyes. Arriving at the door and asking if it might join Sophie and her mother for tea on account of being "very hungry," the tiger precedes to eat all the sandwiches on one plate ("Owp!"), then the buns, the biscuits, all the cake, all the milk in the jug, the tea in the teapot, to clean out the refrigerator and kitchen cupboards, finish "all Daddy's beer," and finally, to go so far as to drink all the water out of the tap. Make no mistake, this is hardly a tame tiger... a gluttonous tiger perhaps, an opportunistic tiger, certainly... But a tiger, nonetheless. Unpredictable, volatile, and not entirely unlike children themselves.  And, as it just so happens, the tiger also ends up being a very good excuse as to why Sophie cannot take her bath later that evening (with no water left in the taps!), and the reason the family has no choice but to go to the cafe down the road for a supper of "sausages and chips and ice cream." Mum, Dad, and Sophie walking past a stripy, orange cat on their way out for dinner, Kerr gives her readers a final knowing wink. We're told that the tiger never returned to Sophie's house, leaving the large feline more than free to show up unexpectedly one day at anyone's front door.  Or so I'd imagine. 

(Visit Lovereading4kids for an  extract.) 

Dog Loves Books by Louise Yates

This book falls into the useful category of what I like to call 'book books'. For those of you relatively new to the term, a 'book book' is a book about, well, books. At least in part. And Yates' is a dog who'll resonate deeply with any book lover, as this dog really and truly "love[s] books," from "the smell of them," "the feel of them," to just "everything about them." In fact, this dog loves books so very much that "he decide[s] to open his own bookshop," "unwrapp[ing]" and "unpack[ing] and stack[ing] the books, ready for the Grand Opening." Getting himself squeaky-clean and geared for the crowds, Dog flings open his balloon-sporting doorway "to greet his new customers." But no one turns up... That is, a little while later, a posh old lady turns up and orders "tea with milk and two sugars," but leaves when she is told that this is a "bookshop" that "only sell[s] books." Then an old man in a trench coat enters the shop, and the increasingly drooping and disappointed ears of our dog stand to attention with excitement. But the man only wants to ask for directions. Again, the bookshop-owner is left "down-hearted." "But not for long!"
Picking up a dinosaur book from one of the shelves, Dog begins to read, and so doing forgets about the outside world  and his empty shop. Furthermore, he feels no longer alone, as the room has become crammed with dinosaurs (of which one has, in my opinion, over-eager eyes and rather fearsome teeth). Leading his dinosaurs like the Pied Piper, Dog goes traipsing through the store carrying the book that has now transformed his surroundings into a primordial, overgrown jungle. And thus it happens that when one adventure meets its ending, our dog has simply to pick another off his shelf, the next being a book entitled Marvellous Marsupials (which he hands down, from the stepladder, to a merry-looking kangaroo)... So a "new adventure" begins! 
From riding in a kangaroo's pouch through the Australian outback, to landing on an unknown planet in a technologically-advanced spaceship to be greeted by a three-eyed alien reading a book on UFO's, to pirouetting and enacting Roman battle scenes, Dog comes to know the books so well that when a young girl enters the shop looking for something to read, he knows "exactly which ones to recommend."  
A valuable lesson is thus learnt and no longer does our dog just loves books; "most of all... he loves to share them!" For an added delight, children (and grown-ups) can turn over the page to find the credits page embellished with a dinosaur reading a dinosaur book. And in a sense, this is the same reward readers have in reading a story about books, about a character who loves books. They get to read a little (or a lot) of themselves into that character, and perhaps even feel that they have a tangible role to play in the story itself.  Perhaps, like Yates' white, short-haired terrier, you too will want to blast your trumpet, shouting out, "I, SUE/PETER/LILLIPUT/GERALD/GERALDINE/RUDYARD/CHRISTOPHOLUS, LOVES BOOKS!" for all the world and then some to hear!

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book? by Lauren Child 

I adore Lauren Child's work! Not only is her knowledge of children and their quirks quite beyond compare (see exhibit A: her Charlie and Lola series), but her illustrations perfectly convey the reckless abandonment of childhood creativity in their unapologetic imperfections. Far from scraps of paper neatly snipped and seamlessly pasted next to each other, or lines dictating where she may or may not colour, Child recreates her imaginative world in a way that can only be construed as one thing: PLAY! 
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book? is the kind of book I'd give to someone if I wanted to convince them in the matter of the greatness of Lauren Child. Unique but unforgettable, entirely contemporary but still timeless, it is every bit a testiment to how wonderful a storyteller she is.  And like all decent fairytales, this one is not without a moral that any book-lover will appreciate: treat your books with kindness and respect, lest you incur the wrath of their characters. 
And for one second, let's pretend we weren't kinda glad to see that greedy little pair of suspender-wearers almost end up in a witch's oven. Serves them right for eating other people's houses... Or was that 'taking sweets from a stranger'? And pigs should know better than to build their houses out of wolf-friendly materials... It's a good thing one of their brothers turned out to be the Bright One in the family. And Snow White eating apples, as if Eve didn't learn that lesson for all of us (or at least those of us forced to attend Bible study where miserable, old biddies would preach fire-and-brimstone). Point is, there is a certain sense of justice when characters are 'rewarded' for their tomfoolery, so to speak, and many a-time in real life when we wish a witch would just shove someone into her pre-heated oven for us. So while the lesson-learner of Child's book isn't quite visited by the ghosts of Past, Present and Future, he is visited by the disgruntled characters of his storybook when he falls into a collection of fairytales one night.
"Oh, so you're the doodler who ruined my looks," an unhappy queen accuses, as the reader sees that she is not the only character Herb has accented with "a moustache drawn on in biro." Our young protagonist suddenly begins to see the error in his ways, and realises the great embarrassment he has caused to those in the fairytale book. Trying to mend his ways, the "scissor-snipper" draws the king a new thrown, "mak[ing] sure it's got lots of twirly bits" and comes in "gold, of course!" However, her highness remains unappeased, leaving the poor (though rightly deserving) Herb to grab a pair of nearby scissors and cut his exit through the page, leaving the queen to yell out, "Look, he's at it again!" 
Climbing through the hole in the page, Herb finds himself in a room where Cinderella's ugly step-siblings and stepmother have been snipped and glued to the ceiling. (Here, readers will have to engage in the story's topsy-turvy shenanigans by flipping the book upside down to read harsh words flung at the boy from above.) From one page to the next, Herb encounters these past sins of book defacement and, finally 'waking up' from his bizarre adventure, resolves to set it all right.  Together with his friend, Ezzie, Herb spends "the rest of the night putting the storybook back to rights: rubbing out moustaches, cleaning out crumbs and blowing away dust," rescuing a bewildered Prince Charming from his mother's old birthday card and returning him to a thrilled Cinderella... And while he resists the temptation to leave the "wicked stepmother's room upside down," he does help the three bears by "drawing a padlock" on their front door. (Ezzie likewise can't resist sticking a wig on Goldilocks; "Well, serves her right for being such a meany.") So this story ends, with Herb having learnt a valuable lesson that parents will happily thank Child for, and "a very cross little girl with mousey brown hair" trying to get in through a securely-padlocked door. The End.

Wake Up! by Katie Cleminson

While 'book books' are grand in that they encourage the child's active participation during story-time - encouraging, as they do, a love of books - picture books can also help in the development of a child's confidence in reading too. Take Katie Cleminson's Wake Up! (It's going to be a busy day...) as a case-in-point. "Wake up..." whispers the elephant's trunk on the opening page, a little boy soundly asleep with his toy rabbit next to him... "and up," as the elephant trunk picks him up, eyes still closed, by the back of his pyjama top... "and up!" as it deposits him safely on the elephant's head, our boy now smiling and gladly awake. "And stretch and scratch, and scrub and wash, comb your hair, give teeth a brush. It's time to dress. Dress up... and up, and up!" The little boy leads the procession, still in pyjamas but with the additions of a hat and toy sword, not to mention a cat in a red tasseled fez, and Lemur in king's robe and crown. Finally, the child is dressed and ready for school, where they will "Listen up... and up, and up!" Here, the scene is truly a sight to behold as a big bear in a red cardigan addresses a classroom full of children, each one accompanied by an animal. One bespectacled young man stands proudly, but attentively, next to a raccoon, while a little brunette gazes dreamily ahead with an equally dreamy-looking penguin, and another girl dearly looks down at her pet hamster.
And so it is time to "read and draw, and count and spell, and ask and answer, show and tell." And soon after this, it is "time to play," so "swing up... and up, and up!" You get the gist.  

All along, however, children are not only rewarded by the repetition that begs for their participation, but also by the illustrations with their old-world innocence to them. Their creator, Cleminson herself, admits to being drawn to things of the past, from gramophone players and bowler hats, to the pipette with which she manages to draw from the happily more organic and impulsive heart. And I am all the more grateful to her for these lovingly rendered characters in predominantly primary-coloured palette, given life and shape and detail by their fluid ink outlines. 
Furthermore, this one is also a 'book book' in its own right. After having eaten and cleaned "up, and up, and up!" the elephant's trunk again comes to the child's aid as he searches for his bedtime story from a book-case brimming over with potential choices. A substantial amount of  "pick[ing] and choos[ing], and search[ing] and look[ing]" later, and it is finally time to "read aloud the perfect book," before cuddling "up, and up, and up!" This said, all I can suggest further is that you find your own "perfect book" not unlike (or perhaps, just like) Cleminson's with which to "cuddle up, and up, and up!" before, your day likewise ends in dreaming...

(For more of Katie Cleminson's work, see her prior award winner -  2009 Best Emerging Illustrator at the Booktrust Early Years Awards  - the picture book entitled Box of Tricks.)

 My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes by Eve Sutton and illustrated Lynley Dodd

Most will already be more than familiar with the signature, so to speak, of Lynley Dodd in the character of Hairy Maclary, a staple in any littlie's library. However, fan or will not be disappointed with My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes.  This next picture book follows a similar path of rhyme and reason as the 'up and up and up!' progression of Cleminson's Wake Up! 
My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes will surely be a gem for any child, and particularly any cat owner, as the cat on the book's cover boasts the quintessential smile (content and rounded at the corners with an air of smugness) that all cat-owners secretly suspect their cats wear when no one is looking. And from the very first opening page - pictured with a wooden garden box, an oddly placed tale swaying from the top, while a pair of eyes peeks out from between two slats - the reader can have no doubt that this is indeed a cat who* likes to hide in boxes.  But not all cats like to hide in boxes, as the reader learns with a turn of the page, for the "cat from France liked to sing and dance." This is paired with an even more smugly contented Pepe-le-Pew-esque faced feline dancing down a cobbled path by moonlight, the scene picturesque with the eiffel tower in the backdrop. Suitably dressed, the dancing cat from France flaunts a black beret (worn askance of course!) and stripy white-and-blue shirt (the kind we generally associate with the eating of frogs' legs). (And yes, I am aware that this is stereotyping at its most innocent and thus most dangerously innocuous, but heck, along with the birds, bees, storks and cabbage-patches, I'm sure there will come a time when you can sit your blossoming young adult down and explain to them the meaning and importance of 'cultural diversity' and 'heterogeneity'. But for now, I guarantee they'll be fine going to World Food Market Day with a garland of garlic cloves round their necks to signify their faux French-ness)
So, the "cat from France liked to sing and dance," but "MY cat likes to hide in boxes," our narrator reiterates (while the cat in question is attempting to stealthily sneak past wearing a stamped package marked "FRAGILE").  Meanwhile, the "cat from Spain flew an aeroplane" (dressed not unlike a Pamplona bull-fighter, maustachioed and all) and the cat from France continues to enjoy a "sing and dance." But still the narrator's rather loopy cat prefers to hide in boxes. And so it continues with a cat from Norway who "got stuck in the doorway" (a rather unfortunate stereotype, I admit), and the cat from Spain still flying an aeroplane, while the cat from France relentlessly "liked to sing and dance." Having encountered both a Brazillian cat, as well as a violin-playing cat from Berlin, the reader is given the penultimate moment of the (rather lovely and kimono-ed) "cat from Japan" who "waved a big blue fan..." "BUT MY CAT LIKES TO HIDE IN BOXES" comes the final sentiment, as the bear in the toy trunk has been wedged into a corner by the narrator's box-crazed pet.
This book reminds me of the first story I ever wrote, I was barely six and it was for a school-holiday competition being held at my neighbourhood library. It was about my first really-loved dog (the first one you remember as a kid not solely from photos and fake memories accumulated through your parents). The Life and Times of Bojangles the Misunderstood Maltese, it might've been called by now (for Bojangles was his name'O... and don't ask, my mother had a thing for the song by Nina Simone)... The point is the pet is the first thing many of us cling to as children... That and imaginary friends (how great are those, the friendship equivalent of Egyptian cotton...? Hand-crafted, 100% irritant-free, and mostly in my head).  And we don't care what Benny Benjamin the Third's SAS-trained Doberman/German Shepherd hybrid can do. Ours is cooler. End of discussion. (Mine would untie your shoelaces in a moment of madness, so overcome was he with joy when I got back home from school. That was my hypothesis for this otherwise inexplicable phenomenon anyway. And how cool is that?!) 
So not only does the book speak in a language children can understand, the language of the beloved pet, totally unlike anyone else's... But the cherry-on-top is the humourous use of rhyming and repetition that will have kids telling the story out loud before they're even able to read, undoubtedly  impressing their glowing grandparents (who you know will return to your home-town with tales of Incredible Timothy Tomkinson, the child prodigy who read My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes at the tender age of 2). Kidding aside, children will love knowing what comes next, and begin to feel more than capable of story-time role swap, reading to parents instead. And ultimately, a confidently faking 'reader' will make for a child who finds books inviting instead of intimitating. Frankly, a parent couldn't ask more out of a picture book.

*speaking of a cat as if it were not a person just seems so inappropriate at times

Lucy Goes to Market by Imogen Clare and Sanchia Oppenheimer

Finally, my latest prized picture book is the "magical alphabet" that is Lucy Goes to Market. 
Meet Lucy, an adventuring spirit and little girl, who leaves for the market one day in search of things that will be Just Right for her dollhouse. Armed only with a woven basket and her snail, Lucy finds many a wonder, including "an asparagus angel," a "Brazilian brass band" (for whom her little musical triangle does not skip a 'ping!'), "a candlelit clock," and (my personal favourites) the "delicate dragon," "invisible igloo," and "nomad named Nathan."  
Caught in the act of a giggle at Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book?, my grandfather asked after what it was I found so funny. Predominantly a numbers man (aside from an appreciation of Roald Dahl that is limitless), these kinds of situations involve a slower, more logical and in-depth rationale. So I explained that it was all the little priceless moments hidden throughout that really made the book... As when Herb's books occasionally have "the odd pea squashed between the pages" on account of Herb's habit of "read[ing] his books everywhere," I showed my grandfather the squashed pea Child had cheekily placed at the bottom corner of the same page. 
"Do you think children really spot these tiny details?" he asked.
"Well, if they practice often enough at Where's Wally? they do," I answered confidently.
No, this is not entirely true. I thought this last bit to myself, yes. But what I answered was a bit more grown-up. What I actually said was that this was where I felt parents had an important role to play. Parents can complain as much as they like about a teenager's inability to spell or do well in a comprehension test, or a child's lack of enthusiasm when it comes to reading, but often this could be afforded to be a little more reflection. There is a special kind of joy in parent and child perusing picture books together from an early age onwards, in pointing out squashed peas, and cats hiding in boxes, and greedy-guts tigers to each other. Herein, the act of reading is introduced not as a task, but as a fun activity to be shared, as an imaginative escape before bedtime, as an open space where nothing is off-limits (not even a cat from Spain flying an aeroplane), and where emotions and experiences are brought to the fore within the comfort of the child's own home (as in, say, Jeffers' The Heart and the Bottle).
In this - that feeling of togetherness that comes with  story-time - Lucy Goes to the Market makes for an ideal start. Firstly, the words chosen by Oppenheimer are wasted if not read aloud. (Try saying "a unicorn umbrella and a vulture with vertigo" quietly in your head... It's not anywhere near as satisfying!) Meanwhile Clare's dream-like and sweetly detailed illustrations are entirely suitable for hours of browsing and reading pleasure. (Here, too, at the book's beginning, there is the added incentive as Lucy's snail asks of readers, "Look for me on every page.") Also, parents may be pleasantly surprised that, with their child/ren, a new language is steadily being learnt, one that involves "endless eccentric eggs," and where citrus slices are in fact better known as "marmalade moons." Put this way, if Lucy Goes to the Market were a dollhouse, it would be a site of endlessly eccentric and wonderful moments of play for you and your child/ren, and should equally manage to do so as a picture book.